


Lift

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: 5000-10000 Words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:05:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Team Whimsy in ds_match, for the prompt of "I can't feel my elbows."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Lift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Whimsy in ds_match, for the prompt of "I can't feel my elbows."

Even though Ray isn't looking forward to the very weird conversation that's coming up, it's a relief when Vecchio finally hammers on his door and yells, "Kowalski? You in there? You okay?" Because by that point he's been sitting around the apartment for hours unable to do much of _anything_, and mostly keeping his eyes closed--it's a little less upsetting that way.

The phone rang over and over, and the answering machine picked up and picked up, and he listened to a snippy where-are-you message from Frannie and a pissed-off where-are-you message from Welsh, and then a _worried_ where-_are_-you? message from Frannie. Then a _really_ pissed-off one from Welsh, but Ray knew by now that that was how Welsh did worried. He briefly considered knocking the phone receiver off the unit with his face and trying to talk, but--no.

 

And then apparently somebody phoned Vecchio, who wasn't scheduled to be in this morning; and, being Vecchio, he didn't call Ray--he just showed up.

*************************

"Yeah, I'm here, I'm fine," Ray hollers back.

"The four hours late for work and not answering the phone kind of fine?" Vecchio says, and Ray grins a little in spite of everything, because since he got back from Vegas Vecchio's Mr. Careful--and Ray just _knows_, can hear it in his voice, that he's supertense out there in the hall. Stepped back a little sideways from the door, gun raised, in case Ray's apartment is full of twitchy mobsters.

"Yeah, that kind."

"So, let me in."

"Can't," Ray says, gets anxious silence from the hall and adds, "Fine, though, I swear. Peachy. No gun to my head, no knife in the ribs, swear to God, officer's _fine_. I just, uh, can't open the door."

"So," Vecchio says, and his voice has relaxed now, gotten a smile in it, "hooker tie you to a chair?"

"Hah. _So_ funny. Get a key from the landlady, okay? Apartment right under me."

"What'll I tell her?"

"Shit, I don't want her coming up here. Tell her--getting out of the tub, back spasm, can't move, embarrassed, naked."

"Is that what _happened_?"

"Nope."

"Ohhhhkay. If _I_ had a key—"

"Not the _time_, Vecchio," Ray snaps, and he hears Vecchio heading for the stairs.

He sits there for a couple more minutes in the wooden kitchen chair. His butt's gone numb but he couldn't get—_arranged_ right in the recliner, there wasn't _room_, and trying to sit on the couch was bad because he kept looking at the TV remote and being reminded he couldn't _use_ it and getting a little panicked.

Then there are steps and a rattle in the lock, and Ray makes himself look up at the door; gonna get an eyeful of Vecchio's reaction first thing, get it over with.

Vecchio opens the door and freezes with his hand still on the knob. His eyes go round and he takes a couple deep loud breaths and says, "Holy _fuck_."

*************************

When Ray woke up with wings he wasn't actually that whacked out for the first few minutes. Because he figured he wasn't really _awake_, that this was just another in the series of "I am some kind of bizarre freak" dreams he'd been having lately. In the past week or so he'd been a man-lizard-thing, and a centaur, and one of those carnival guys who eats lightbulbs. And in every dream there'd been people pointing and staring and laughing, so this one wasn't that bad, what with being set in the privacy of his apartment and not featuring a throatful of broken glass. So he just got the briefest glimpse--brown and white feathers, _big_\--before he closed his eyes in the dream and waited to drift into blank sleep or just one of his more usual dreams, like the one where Vecchio insisted they trade cars or the one where Fraser was trying to convince him that Canadians _always_ slept with peanut butter in their ears.

But things stayed the same and stayed the same, and every time he shifted a little there was a feathery rustling noise, and his shoulders hurt where he was lying on the wings, and there was a tickle-in-the-back-of-the-nose dusty-feather-pillow smell, and _damn_ this was a detailed dream. He tried moving his arms around to take some of the pressure off his shoulders, and--that felt really strange, something was wrong there.

He squinched his eyes tighter shut, time for this dream to go _away_ now, but it didn't, and he whispered, "I can't feel my elbows."

He finally made himself look, and--the wings didn't come out from behind his arms like he'd been figuring. The wings _were_ his arms, or his arms were the wings--a few inches out from the shoulders his arms narrowed, tapered, became the feathered ridge of muscle at the top of the wings, with tiny bones fanning out and down.

He couldn't feel his elbows because he didn't _have_ any.

He didn't have any _hands_ either.

That was when he lost it for a little while.

************************

_Vecchio's_ losing it now, pacing up and down in front of Ray with his hand over his mouth. Every now and then he stops, waves wildly at Ray like he's gotten some big lightning-strike solve-everything idea; but then he just says, "You--" and covers his mouth again and starts pacing.

"Yeah, that helps," Ray says.

"Sorry," Vecchio says, and pulls a chair close and sits down. Ray's got to give him some credit--after the initial surprise he's acted worried and weirded out, yeah, but not like Ray was a repulsive mutant or anything. He even touched the wings, felt around where they flare out of Ray's sides and ran his hands along the tops. "Yeah, they're--they're really _on_ there," he said.

"No kidding, " Ray said. The touching there was strange--didn't hurt exactly but didn't feel good either; sort of a sourish prickly licking-a-battery feeling, but all up and down his back instead of on his tongue.

Vecchio rubs at his forehead, eyes Ray. "You get _bitten_ by anything lately?" he says. "Are there werewolf birds? Werebirds?"

And that's so fucking stupid it cheers Ray up, so he gives Vecchio a glare and _sings,_ "Little old lady got mutilated late last night, werebirds of London again..."

Vecchio snorts, says, "Okay, probably not." He looks Ray over again, says, "You know, I could probably think this through a little better if you weren't naked."

"You ever try to put boxer shorts on with your _teeth_?"

"Oh, I dunno, I bet _you_ could," Vecchio says, with a leer, and then his face gets--different and he says, "You sleep naked when you're alone and wear shorts after you fuck somebody? Huh."

"Vecchio," Ray says softly. "Not now."

"Yeah, okay, sorry. But let's get some clothes on you, all right?"

He gets some shorts out of Ray's dresser and helps Ray step into them--his balance is off in strange ways. And Ray _hates_ this, hates needing help, but Vecchio keeps his mouth shut at least.

They get sat back down and Ray bites back on the _snarl_ that he always wants to use on anybody who's seen him worthless and useless, (shot and in a hospital bed, drunk off his ass the first few weeks after Stella left, drunk off his ass the first few days after he and Fraser came back from the quest and the new Inspector cancelled the liaising) makes himself say, "You're being--pretty calm. Considering the freakishness. Thanks."

Vecchio waves a hand. Usually that looks kind of elegant on him, he's got nice hands--but this time a tiny feather floats off his cuff, spirals slowly down to the floor while they both stare at it. A--pinfeather, maybe? Fraser would know.

"Well," Vecchio says. "You're not—" He gives Ray a tired look. "In Vegas? I had to eat _dinner_ with this one guy--more than once, because the Bookman was _friends_ with him--that I'd heard, everybody said he could only get if up if they, if the kids were--" He stops, runs a hand through his sparse hair. "Anyway," he says. "_He_ was a freak. _You're_ just fucked up."

Ray doesn't know what to say to that, so he shrugs, which turns out to be a bad plan because his--his fucking _wingspan_ is wider than his body's figured out yet, and he whacks Vecchio in the face with a wing tip.

"Ow," Vecchio says.

"Maybe you should—"

"I'll call Fraser."

"Yeah."

*************************

Ray'd gotten over the worst of the re-entry into his regular life by the time Vecchio came back from Florida, by that morning that Welsh called the two of them into the office and said that he was, "with a certain sense of dread and inevitability," partnering them up.

He'd stopped with the drinking, hauled himself out of it after a few days, because--he didn't have anything to mourn, really; there'd never _been_ anything, he'd never _said_ anything, because no way would Fraser say yes. And because he managed to get it through his skull that this was a good thing for Fraser, that the reason the new Inspector was pulling him off liaising duty was that he was giving Fraser actual worthwhile stuff to do over in mini-Canada--investigative stuff and diplomatic stuff. 'Bout time, after the submarine and all, that somebody figured out the guy was wasted on guard duty, and it was better for him to be doing interesting things at his own job than to be tagging along on the interesting parts of Ray's.

So they worked their jobs, and they met up a lot for meals and TV and just hanging out. Ray was almost okay, and things were almost normal, and Fraser seemed--fine. But remembering how he'd looked up there on the ice fields, just totally blissed, so much more than fine, Ray couldn't figure out why Fraser'd come back at all. It wasn't gonna last, he could tell. Fraser would keep impressing the hell out of his boss, and he'd get some kind of awesome-to-him offer up in the ass-end of nowhere, and he'd be gone. And he'd be _happy_, so okay, Ray was okay with that.

And then Vecchio came back and things got weird. Vecchio was really _different_\--Ray'd had him figured, that frantic couple of days they'd met before, for a serious posturer. All bluster and swagger, easy to rile up, all "hands off _my_ partner" and "I was off being a big tough Mafia guy while you were being the wussy little cop I used to be" and--he made _sense_, Ray _got_ him. But when he came back he was quiet, and sort of slower-moving, and when he'd fucked up he owned up to it right off, calmly--"Yeah, Lieu, I gotta get paperwork filed with the DA on time, we're all on the same team, you're right." Not in a sucking-up way, either, just: yep, there it is. And even weirder, it had gotten impossible to insult him. Ray didn't really try, because he needed to get along with the guy, but Huey and Dewey did, God knows. They were both kinda pissy after they had to cut the struggling comedy club back to a night job and start working at the station again, and Vecchio got the worst of it--maybe because he'd left all triumphant and had to come back too. They ragged on his clothes and his car (the same car, _again_, geez) and his detecting skills (which were, Ray was relieved to find, actually pretty damn good) and he just smiled a little and kept at his paperwork.

And one day Dewey started in on Vecchio's six-week Stella-marriage, possible reasons it was so short, and covered the expected territory of "She meet somebody hotter, like, a _monkey_?" and "Did she bail because you couldn't get it up?" Ray wasn't even paying much attention, plodding along on his own stack of overdue triplicate forms, with Dewey's jabbing and Vecchio's saying, "Yeah, sure, that's it," and "Whoa, Dewey, how'd you guess?" just background noise. And then Dewey said, "No, no, I got it, _you_ bailed because you didn't think _she_ was as hot as _Fraser_."

And Ray gulped in a breath and looked up, waiting for Vecchio to go _off_ on Dewey, to start removing _pieces_ of Dewey, because, holy hell, you do not go there, that is the There to Which You Do Not Go.

But Vecchio just smiled, said, "No, I thought they were pretty much equally hot," and went back to what he was doing.

Jesus.

Dewey sat with his mouth open for a while, and then closed it so hard Ray could hear his teeth click. And everybody left Vecchio alone after that.

Ray, though, spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell was _up_ with Vecchio--it was a nice distraction from those fantasies about things he was, face it, never going to do with Fraser. He watched Vecchio all the time, listened hard to the things he said and the things he didn't, and finally decided that maybe Florida and Stella had been in some weird way Vecchio's last bluster, his last fronting; that now he was what he was. And what he was, was the only person Ray had ever met who genuinely no longer gave a shit what anybody thought about him. On _any_ subject.

That was really fucking _scary_.

He was a good partner, though, and they hung out a little after work; sometimes with Fraser, which was easier, more comfortable than Ray would have thought. And one night, a few weeks after Vecchio got back, they were all watching a game together and Fraser begged off; had to get up early in the morning, thank you kindly for the chips and dip, come along, Dief.

Ray and Vecchio watched for a few minutes more, and Ray was starting to feel a little yawny himself when Vecchio suddenly said, "So, you pretty much over him?"

 

"I--what?" Ray said. "It's not, it was never like that, I'm not--"

"Sure," Vecchio said, smiled slow, leaned over and kissed him.

Ray was too stunned to do _anything_ for a second, and then he opened his mouth to say "Whoa!" Honestly he wasn't sure if it was going to be a "Stop!" kind of whoa or a "Keanu Reeves is very impressed!" kind of whoa, but it didn't matter--when he opened his mouth Vecchio took it as "c'mon in and get comfy," and wow, nice tongue, there. So he didn't do anything to stop it, because it had been a really, really long time since he'd had any kissing at all, much less any like this, Vecchio's tongue all pointy and pushy and tickling and Vecchio's hands in his hair and Vecchio's whole body smooshing him into a corner of the couch, god_damn_.

He figured he would stop it if Vecchio tried for anything else, but the anything else turned out to be Vecchio's hands untucking Ray's shirt and sliding up and pinching at his nipples, which, Jesus, that was. Acceptable. Yeah, but he was definitely going to stop this if it went any further.

Except that the any further was Vecchio sliding Ray's sweatpants down and taking his cock in his mouth, and Ray was not _stupid_, so he didn't say a word, just moaned through his clenched teeth while Vecchio went _at_ him. Teased him with just a tongue-tip while Ray tried really hard not to arch all the way off the couch, and licked around the head, and went down and down and further down, and sucked hard and fast.

The thing that killed Ray, though, the thing that put him over the edge, was that the whole time Vecchio was making these little happy noises, these "I am the one getting a treat here," noises. That was--just--that was--Ray couldn't even figure out _what_ that was, but it made him lose it completely, made him shake and shiver and swear and come in Vecchio's mouth. Left him useless and helpless, sprawled on the couch, couldn't have moved if you paid him.

And then Vecchio did an even weirder thing. Which Ray wouldn't have thought was _possible_, but it was. Vecchio knelt up and looked at Ray, right in the face, and then reached up and _rumpled his hair_.

_Affectionately_. Like they had something going _on_ here. But before Ray could get out, "What the _fuck_?" Vecchio said, "Hey, I'm heading out. First thing tomorrow, we'll canvass the witnesses on the storefront smash-and-grabs, okay?"

"Yeah, fine," Ray said, lay there with his cock out and watched Vecchio go out the door.

That was how it went for the next few weeks. Vecchio would just jump him, get him amped up out of his fucking mind or get him to come so hard he'd _lost_ his fucking mind, and then--Vecchio would _assume_ stuff. Vecchio would _make assumptions_. Like, about reciprocating. Ray would be flopped on his bed, boneless and brainless and panting, and then Vecchio would climb up on him and sort of shove _his_ cock in _Ray's_ mouth, which, yeah, was only fair, but it was bizarre that he just figured Ray would be okay with that. And Vecchio smelled, felt, tasted really good and Ray somewhere found the energy to start licking and sucking, so apparently he _was_ okay with that. But still.

Or Vecchio would do--_relationship_-type things. Hair-rumpling. Cheek-patting. And once, when Ray was sprawled on his living room floor with carpet burns up his back, trying to remember how to breathe, Vecchio got their fingers all tangled together, just lay there and held his _hand_ for a minute until Ray got it together enough to move away.

Vecchio was always _pushing_. And Ray tried to explain that it wasn't like that, that _he_ wasn't like that, that this was a--tide-us-over kind of deal, but without hurting the guy's feelings too much. Because Vecchio was a good guy, really.

And it never seemed to hurt him at all, because Vecchio would always agree and then act like he hadn't heard a damn word.

*************************

"Vecchio. I do not have every goddamn night free to spend with you."

"Sure, okay. You wanna go play pool?"

*************************

"Vecchio, this is not a _thing_. It's just a thing, okay?"

"Yeah, fine--killer logic, there, Kowalski. Hey, here's a key to my place, you need to make me a copy of yours."

*************************

"Kowalski, you make me that key yet?"

"No, I did not make you a key, because I am not your fucking _boyfriend_, Vecchio."

"Whatever. I'm gonna leave some spare clothes here."

 

Like that. It was making Ray insane.

*************************

Except it's kind of nice now, Ray has to admit, because he's just barely hanging on, just managing not to freak out completely from that ongoing loony chant of "Look, ma, no hands!" repeating in his head. It's nice because when Vecchio finishes talking to Fraser, hangs up, plops down on the couch, Ray knows he can sit down next to him, all awkward with the wings bent up and sticking out every which way, and Vecchio will still manage somehow to get an arm across what's left of his shoulders. Will pull Ray close and pet his hair and say, "We'll figure it out, we're gonna work something out, okay?" And right now Ray doesn't even mind the "we."

He jumps up when there's a knock at the door, though, is up and pacing by the time Vecchio sighs and lets Fraser and Dief in.

Vecchio's given Fraser some warning, so he just gives a "Hmmmmm," and starts circling Ray. Then gets his hands on the wings, fans them out and bends them experimentally, inspects individual feathers and mutters about coverts and primaries and secondaries.

Finally he looks up and says, "Has anything _bitten_ you recently?"

Ray and Vecchio both crack up. Vecchio starts a wolf howl and Dief joins in, so then they both get the giggles even worse and it's a while before they can explain it to Fraser.

"Ah," he says. "Yes, doubtful, admittedly. I'm afraid, Ray, that I'm just going to have to chalk this up to--magic."

"Oh great," Ray says. "Like, a voodoo thing? Who'd I piss off?"

"Who _didn't_ you?" Vecchio says, and Ray's getting a little better with the wing control, whacks him on purpose this time.

"This sort of transformation hasn't appeared in any of the voudoun literature I'm familiar with," Fraser says. "Some other magical tradition, perhaps, in which case it _could_ be a personal attack by a practitioner. But if it's an intervention by a god or gods, instead, it could have no basis whatsoever in your behavior--gods can be quite capricious."

"'Capricious' means 'bastards'?"

"More or less. On occasion, though, such a--curse, if it's from a god, could be intended as some sort of behavior modification. You could be supposed to--change something, learn a lesson."

"I have learned my lesson," Ray says instantly, looking at the ceiling. "I have learned any fucking lesson you wanna teach me. I will never eat chicken again. I will never eat any birds. Or eggs. Fuck, I will stop eating _eggplant_ if you want, I don't even _like_ it. I will be a totally good person, I will give money to orphanages, I'll believe in whatever you like, I'll buy that Oswald acted alone, anything, just give me a fucking break here."

They all stand there for a stupid minute, looking up, like some big giant head is going to appear and say, "Oh, _okay_," and poof Ray back to normal. Which of course doesn't happen.

"Shit," Ray says, and plops back down on the couch.

The phone rings and they all jump a little. Vecchio says, "Oh, _hell_, I never called the station," and picks up. And it's gotta be Welsh because Vecchio starts apologizing right away, explaining that Ray has some kind of god-awful stomach flu or food poisoning, and what is this, Thursday? There's no _way_ he'll be in tomorrow, the poor guy can barely stand up, couldn't even make it to the phone earlier, and Vecchio's gonna hang around and make sure he stays hydrated, they'll both be in Monday, and--

Fraser walks over near the phone and starts making the most amazing retching noises; seriously, he sounds like a cow turning inside out. Ray's getting a little nauseated just _hearing_ it, and Vecchio grins and says, "Oh, _yech_, I gotta clean up _again_," and hangs up.

"Nice," Vecchio says.

"I try, Ray," Fraser says, solemnly. Then he sits down, pulls out a pocket notebook and a pencil, and starts making a list--"Local practitioners of magic, and priests or priestesses of the more obscure religions," he explains. He alternates writing and chewing on his pencil, and Ray is managing to distract himself from his current fucked-itude by _watching_ him chew on the pencil. Then Ray looks over and catches _Vecchio_ watching the pencil-chewing, and they share a grin.

"Maybe you should add large-animal vets," Vecchio says.

"Maybe I should _wing_ you to death," Ray says.

"Not as idle a threat as you might think, Ray," Fraser says. "There has been a documented case of a full-grown, healthy human male being beaten to death by a swan."

"Benny, there is no way a guy got beat to death by a swan," Vecchio says. "It's possible the guy died of _embarrassment_ because he _let_ a swan beat him up."

"No, really. There were _multiple witnesses_," Fraser says. For a second Ray enjoys how normal all the bitchery feels, but then it suddenly pisses him _off_, and he says, "Could we maybe focus on my problem, here?"

"Certainly, Ray, sorry," Fraser says, but then he stands up and says, "Ah--facilities for a moment, first," and heads for the bathroom.

"Hey," Vecchio says. "Have _you_\--_how_ did you?"

 

"Haven't had to," Ray says, and thinks about how fucking impossible _that_ would have been. Then he thinks a minute and starts getting a little nervous--more nervous--and says, "Haven't been hungry, either. Or thirsty."

"Huh," Vecchio says. "Maybe your metabolism's changed?"

And that's really terrifying, so Ray grins at him, says, "At least you didn't have to hold my dick in the bathroom."

"Yeah, small favors," Vecchio says.

"Was that a size dig?" Ray says, and Vecchio leans in and nips his ear, murmurs, "I know better than that."

Ray squirms and smiles--and, and _flutters_ a little, and looks up to see Fraser standing in the living room doorway with his mouth open.

"It's not," Ray says. His voice has gone all squeaky. "We haven't. It isn't. Really."

 

Vecchio, goddamn him, just says, "Hey, Benny." Gently.

Fraser stands there for a moment, and then puts on this smile, this _horrible_ smile, and says, "Ah. You are...amenable. As are you. You both are. I had not, I had not guessed. I could have, you would have let--excuse me."

He goes back into the bathroom, and slams the door. Then there are all these noises, some of which are laughing and some of which are really, really not.

Ray should probably be doing something or saying something, but he can't get past the fact that Benton Fraser is having some kind of breakdown in his bathroom.

The noises get quieter and further apart, and finally Ray looks at Vecchio and says, "I don't think he could mean what I think he means. You think?"

"Yeah," Vecchio says.

"Which is?" Ray says, because he'd like to hear somebody else say it and make sure he's not crazy. The day he's having, he's maybe not at his most logical.

"Which is," Vecchio says, "we're all--'amenable.' And we're all stupid."

"Huh," Ray says. They sit there, listening as the noises die out completely, and finally Ray manages, "You know, this day is just not getting any more normal."

Fraser comes out of the bathroom then. He looks--blotchy and puffy and only about half as hot as usual, and Ray suddenly wants to touch him so bad he can barely keep himself on the couch. His wings shudder all around him, trying to make him move.

"So," Fraser says, "you two have an...interpersonal arrangement of some sort? That's wonderful, congratulations."

Vecchio looks at Ray, and Ray--doesn't say anything, which makes no sense at all because the answer's "No," it's _obviously_ no, but his mouth is not opening.

Finally he stands up and walks over to Fraser, and Fraser's just standing there, breathing loud and looking at him and not touching him. Ray stands close and curls one wing around him, the tips of his feathers brushing the backs of Fraser's knees, and looks at Vecchio.

Vecchio looks back at the two of them with a face gone totally blank. Ray's never seen the guy before with an expression that was such a--lack of one.

"Hey, Benny," Vecchio says quietly, "give me your list, I'll go track down some of 'em, get out of you guys' hair."

Ray takes a deep breath, because if he says this there's no going back to anything approaching normal, wings or not. Thinks crazily, _welcome to the freak kingdom, helmet required when operating a motorcycle, please leave your weapons at the border_, and says, "Vecchio, you asshole, get over here."

*************************

It turns out that even a queen-size bed isn't built to accommodate three full-grown guys and a couple thousand feathers. The only way they fit on it is with Ray in the middle and Vecchio and Fraser each lying on a wing. So Ray's _pinned_, can't move, and he's dying to--to get his _hands_ on both of them, which is obviously not going to happen. And he was expecting, after a year of stupid pointless _pining_ after Fraser, which, goddamnit, he could have ended any time--he was expecting, after that, that it would mess with his head a little watching Vecchio kiss him.

He wasn't expecting, though, to be wanting to tell Vecchio to get the hell off Fraser _and_ wanting to tell Fraser to get the hell off Vecchio.

"Guys," he manages finally, and they break the long fucking clinch they've had going over his _chest_, look at him.

"_Dying_ here," he says, and then Vecchio's sucking on his earlobe on one side and Fraser is kissing along the top of the wing on the other.

And Fraser surprises him, because--when he walked in and saw the wings he was all, "Hmmm, I shall now be extremely calm and scientific," but here, with his mouth nuzzling into Ray's feathers, he moans, "Oh, Ray, your beautiful _hands_," in this way that makes it sound like a personal tragedy for _him_. Which is kind of cool.

Ray doesn't get to think that over much, though, because Fraser shifts over from wing to nipple. He's kissing and licking and biting just lightly, and making little hungry noises. Ray's got zingy shocky feelings shooting out from there, and from what Vecchio's doing to his ear on the other side, and they cross streams in the middle of his body and get his spine all confused.

He moans and arches his hips up, and then he has one terrible second of wondering whether everything is still gonna _work_ right before Vecchio's hand is cupping his balls and Fraser's hand is around his cock and yeah, yeah, all systems are go.

*************************

When he wakes up his wings have gone numb under the other guys. Vecchio's snoring and Fraser's drooling into the feathers a little.

Ray wiggles his wings out from under them, and the guys stir vaguely and grumble. He sits up awkwardly--he's starting to work out how much he can use the stupid things to push himself upright; not all that much, but enough to manage. Makes himself look at the wings carefully; better get used to them in case this is a--permanent thing.

He could--he could almost deal with the wings, if it was just that, if they were just _added on_. But the _hands_ thing. God, that's--

"I can't _drive_. Jesus," he says into the quiet of the bedroom. That's, he can't fucking _take_ that.

Then he looks at the wings a little closer, and the bed, and says, "Hey. Hey, guys!"

"Mmmph?" Fraser says and sits up. Vecchio grumbles and pulls a pillow over his head.

"I think they're different," Ray says. "I think--don't my arms look normal for a little further out, before the feathers start? And look, I shed a fuckload of feathers in the bed."

"Hmm," Fraser says, and inspects. Vecchio emerges and checks things out on his side.

"Yeah, I think?" Vecchio says, and "Perhaps, probably?" Fraser says.

Fraser hops out of bed and comes back from the kitchen with a Sharpie, draws a line on each of Ray's arms where the feathers start. "We should have done this earlier--now if there's a change we can tell for sure. I'm optimistic, I'm _fairly_ certain there's a change here, and combined with the feather loss--although it's possible that's just molting as part of a change from juvenile plumage to adult."

"Great, thanks," Ray says, but he's--optimistic, yeah.

Fraser and Vecchio get their clothes back on and help Ray into his shorts again, and then they all start trying to figure out what to do next--if they should just sit around and watch for changes, or maybe Vecchio or Fraser should go out and start tracking down names from the list.

Ray's trying hard to think, but he's distracted by the serious funk the bedroom has acquired, what with all the orgasms and all the feathers (and what is he gonna do for hygiene, anyway, a dust bath?)

"I gotta get a little _air_, guys," Ray says. "Can you, uh--" he waves at the blankets--"drape me?"

Fraser and Vecchio get an end of blanket apiece and put it carefully over his shoulders. He feels kinda like James Brown.

He steps out onto the tiny, tiny balcony off his bedroom, squeezes past the rusty barbecue grill and just breathes. Even the Chicago air is nice after a day inside panicking.

Then he looks back inside and Fraser is watching him so intently, knees bent, ready to move. Like he thinks Ray is gonna get an offer he can't refuse from a passing Canada goose, or something.

"Fraser," he says, "I am not taking to the skies, okay? Lighten up."

Fraser stands down, and Ray goes back to breathing and not thinking and looking down at the street, at the hot-dog stand and the kids bicycling on the sidewalk and the homeless guy who yells "CONDOMS!" every time you pass his corner and the old lady getting mugged and--_fuck_.

"Fuck!" he yells. "Mugging! Across the street!" and behind him he hears the apartment door wham open and Fraser and Vecchio both pounding full-bore for the stairs, but that'll take a couple minutes and the asshole is _hitting_ her. She already gave up the purse and being that she's an old lady in _this_ neighborhood she's probably got seven dollars and a kleenex in there, and he's _hitting_ her, Jesus.

Ray shrugs the blanket off and climbs up on the rusty scaly rail and jumps.

And for a second there he doesn't remember to move the wings because he's too busy thinking, "Oh _hell_, I only have boxer shorts on," but then he pushes his arms down and he--lifts a little, it's like the air is pushing up under him, weird.

But he's going into this long swoop that looks like he's gonna to end up landing four miles down the road. He needs to go down sharp and fast, and he remembers something about pulling the wings in, making them smaller, from the only bird thing he ever read. Which was Jonathan Livingston Seagull when he was eleven.

And if he ever meets the guy that wrote that he is going to kick his seagull-loving _ass_, because pulling the wings in sends Ray into a goddamn _death spiral_, the buildings on either side of the street blendering around him and the yelling from the sidewalk getting closer and he can't pull out and _wham_.

He's really sure for a second that he's dead, but he's not, because there's a guy under him, and then he's sure he killed the guy under him, but he didn't. And then he's pretty sure that he broke a few bits of the guy, including his nose and a leg. And he's _right_ about that, but he doesn't really care because by this point he's figured out that the semi-broken guy is the mugger.

He's sitting on this moaning mugger with his wings spread out on the sidewalk, and there's a circle of people around him staring. One of them is the old lady. She reaches out and pulls her purse out of the mugger's fingers, then looks at Ray and says, "Are you an avenging angel?"

"Sure," he says. "Why not."

She gives him a huge smile and then looks at the mugger and says, "God _hates_ you, you dickweed," and whacks him in the broken nose with the purse.

Which is when Fraser and Vecchio push through the crowd, and Vecchio's calling it in and saying he can't stay at the scene, for extremely complicated reasons, but the perp isn't going anywhere. But the beat cops should hurry anyway before Ruth Buzzi beats the guy to death.

Fraser gets Ray up and kind of gets his arms around the wings, like that's gonna _hide_ anything, and one kid standing there gaping says, "Hawkman, right?"

"Absolutely," Ray says. Fraser whaps him on the back of the head and says, "No, no. Experimental…government...black ops…"

"Weather balloon," Vecchio adds, and they hustle Ray out of there. Nobody chases them, everybody's still just standing there on the sidewalk--to stretch their brains around what they just saw, probably.

They scoot Ray down an alley, and Vecchio hunkers down by some trash cans with him while Fraser runs up to get the blanket off the balcony.

"_Hawkman_," Ray says.

"You realize Hawkman is a total _jerk_ of a superhero."

"A total jerk of a superhero," Ray says, "is still a superhero."

Fraser gets back and they're bundling him up, and Vecchio says, "Well, _he's_ gonna be unbearable for a while," but he scoots an arm around Ray's waist when he says it. Fraser does the same from the other side, so they can get the wings draped over their backs and the blanket draped over the wings, so they're just three guys walking around with a blanket on, la la la move along, nothing to see here.

They start down the alley to the next street, "So we can go in your building out of sight of the--witnesses to your unorthodox arrest technique, Ray," Fraser says.

Vecchio suddenly giggles and says, "You know, we really need a _three_-man poncho," and Fraser cracks up.

Ray has no idea what they're talking about, but he's leaving a trail of shed—molted?—feathers. Which has gotta be good, right? And Fraser and Vecchio are hanging on tight, hips pressing hard into his. Walking in synch and squeezing him hard, and for the rest of the alley his feet don't touch the ground.

 

\--END--


End file.
